Buenos Aires City mayor-elect Jorge Macri took his oath of office on Thursday, extending the opposition PRO party’s control of City Hall into a fifth administration.
Macri, 58, formally assumes his post as of Sunday. In a speech marking his assumption, he underlined that his administration “won’t live off the successes of the past'' and promised to “revise the current Urban Code,” also known as the Building Code, the laws that define construction in the capital.
“It’s exciting and a great responsibility,” stated the former Vicente López mayor who switched terrain to the City last year to serve as government minister.
He was joined onstage by his number two, new deputy mayor Clara Muzzio, and his predecessor, outgoing Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and his cousin, former president and ex-City mayor Mauricio Macri.
Muzzio was also sworn in at the Buenos Aires Legislature.
In his speech, Jorge Macri underlined: “A new stage is beginning which obliges us to outdo everything done so far, to defend the transformations we have achieved and aim for more, to understand that we don’t live on the successes of the past, that what was a solution a few years ago is not necessarily the case in the present.”
He continued: “It’s a moment when we need to restore order to guarantee liberties, because to rule is also to find a balance between conflicts of interest. There is no way to rule by avoiding conflict.”
In this respect, he talked about pickets and pointed out that “people expect to be able to exercise all their liberties,” regardless of his defending the right to protest.
“I’ve already been talking about these guarantees with president-elect Javier Milei and [future national Security minister] Patricia Bullrich. We’ll work as a team to guarantee those liberties,” stressed the incoming City mayor.
Jorge Macri also stated that he would urge the Casa Rosada to comply with the Supreme Court decision to return the federal revenue-sharing funds which outgoing President Alberto Fernández took away, a process first initiated in 2020.
“People are tired of politics, but we should be tired of working hard. That’s our commitment as a team for Buenos Aires City,” Macri added, before concluding: “I hope I’m up to the challenge”.
The Buenos Aires City Legislature has renewed half of its 60 seats in a preparatory session where the next legislators were sworn in for the 2023-2027 term, and in which the new authorities of the Buenos Aires Parliament were also voted.
There will be 30 new lawmakers, out of which 15 go to Juntos por el Cambio, 10 to Unión por la Patria, four to La Libertad Avanza and one to the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores-Unidad.
– TIMES/PERFIL
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